Deborah Robertson is Professor and Acting Associate Dean of the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Northern Illinois University. She has previously been on the faculties of the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, the Actors Movement Studio in New York, and the Actors Center, Chicago.  She has taught workshops in New Zealand, London, at national conferences, residencies in university programs around the country, and at festivals and private studios nationwide.

Ms. Robertson received her MFA in Dance Performance from Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, on a teaching fellowship, and her BA in Dance from the University of Colorado, Boulder. She is a certified teacher of the Williamson Physical Training for the Actor, and was trained by Loyd Williamson at the Actors Movement Studio in New York City. She has studied Laban Movement Analysis at the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies in New York, the Webster Movement Institute in St. Louis, and the Royal National Theatre in London.  She has received her first level of certification in the work of Michael Chekhov by the Michael Chekhov Association (MICHA) and is currently pursuing her certification as a Master Teacher. As an actress she completed the two-year Meisner training with William Esper in New York City and studied with Stephen Strimpell at HB Studios in New York.

Her work as a choreographer and movement coach has been seen internationally, in regional theatres, university productions, and on television. Most recently she choreographed a production of The Birds which was produced at the Moscow Art Theatre Studio, Moscow, Russia. As an actress and dancer, she has appeared on Broadway, National Tours, Off Broadway, industrials, regional theatres around the country, and on television.

In addition to serving as president of the Association of Theatre Movement Educators (ATME), she is a member of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE), the Michael Chekhov Association (MICHA), Actors Equity (AEA), and the Screen Actors Guild (SAG).

Annette Thornton is in her first year as Assistant Professor of Theatre and Interpretation at Central Michigan University where she directs the music theatre program. Previously, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Theatre Arts Department at Lawrence University (Appleton, WI) where she taught a variety of courses as well as directed, choreographed, and served as physical dramaturge for both faculty and student directed productions.  During her post-doc she directed and choreographed The Mystery of Edwin Drood and I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change, and this winter she directed Blood Wedding, which received three certificates of merit from KCACTF Region 3.  Her scholarly interests include mime and mime performers.  Her dissertation on Lotte Goslar, Grandma Always Danced: The Mime Theatre of Lotte Goslar, is the first full-length study of this important female clown/pantomime/dancer.  Thornton is finishing two projects for the late Bari Rolfe that have been accepted for publication:  an updated mime bibliography and a collection of Rolfe’s writings – look for these valuable reference books in late 2008/early 2009.  Thornton earned a PhD from the University of Colorado, Boulder.  She has studied mime with Marcel Marceau and Meyerhold’s Theatrical Biomechanics with Gennadi Bogdanov and is a certified yoga teacher.  She has been an active member of ATME for eight years, recently serving as secretary.

Marianne Kubik heads the Movement Division for the Department of Drama at the University of Virginia, where she teaches a three-year movement sequence for the MFA in Acting program as well as similar courses in the undergraduate program. Marianne’s work is grounded in biomechanics, whether teaching mask, stage combat, period dance or Laban. She has led workshops in biomechanics at the University of Connecticut, the University of Florida, the Academia dell’Arte in Italy, and at IU/GTE’s ‘07 conference in Slovenia. Her book chapter on the subject can be found in Allworth Press’ Movement for Actors. Marianne is an Advanced Actor/Combatant in all eight weapons recognized by the Society of American Fight Directors. Her focus in this discipline is on encouraging empowerment in women both on and off the stage. A writer, director, choreographer, and performer, Marianne’s creative interest is in devising movement theater that speaks to women’s issues. In 2007, she was invited to develop The Forgetting River at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, using puppetry to explore a feminist approach to the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. She served as Movement Coach for the ’08 National Puppetry Conference at the O’Neill, where she has also presented her piece Façade. Her recently completed film No Shoes for Dancing is an exploration into silent film. Such research has assisted in redirecting the focus of UVA’s MFA in Acting program to encourage devising theater and to develop the digital thesis on DVD. Marianne served as Program Coordinator for the ATME Colloquium in 2007.

Beth Johnson is an Associate Professor of Theatre at Finger Lakes Community College, Canandaigua, New York, where she teaches a wide variety of classes including acting, voice, and mime.  Earning degrees from Belmont University, Indiana State University, and the University of Georgia provided her the opportunity to work in a variety of venues including Opryland USA, Highlands Playhouse in North Carolina, Tennessee Repertory Theatre, Georgia Rep., and a brief stint at Disney World.  A member of ATME since 2004, she attended ATHE in San Francisco and New Orleans.

Sara Romersberger is currently Assistant Professor of Movement at Southern Methodist University in the Division of Theatre. She holds an MA in Dance from the University of Illinois and a Certificate of Mime/Movement from Ecole Jacques LeCoq, Paris. Prior to joining the faculty at SMU, she held full time faculty positions at Illinois Wesleyan University and West Virginia University. In NYC, Sara has danced with the Julie Maloney Dance Company and the Wendy Osserman Dance Company and has directed, choreographed and performed her own brand of movement theater Off-Off Broadway at The Mint Theatre (Jackson Pollock: IN THE PAINTING) and at Primary Stages (Hanna: A RUN-ON ODESSEY). Since 1980 she has choreographed over forty professional and university musicals. Since moving to Texas in1998, she has created the movement and choreography for The Robber Bridegroom, Red Noses, The Illusion, The Threepenny Opera, As Five Years Pass (all SMU Theatre) as well as Street Scene (SMU Opera), and The Merry Widow (UNT Opera). She has choreographed fights, dances and physical comedy for The Comedy of Errors at the Unseam¹d Shakespeare Co., Pittsburgh, as well as The Compleat Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) for The Shakespeare Festival of Dallas. For the Dallas Theater Center, Sara has choreographed dances for Crumbs from the Table of Joy and Hamlet and movement for Wit. Elsewhere in the Metroplex; Misery for Circle Theatre, Fort Worth, and A Man¹s Best Friend, Silence, and The Late Henry Moss at The Undermain Theatre, Dallas and for Plano Repertory Theatre, The Last Five Years. Sara directed Twelfth Night and designed and created commedia masks for her production of The Three Cuckolds at SMU. In 2002, Sara has completed her CD ROM: "Unlocking the Physicality of Shakespeare¹s Comedies with the Masks of the Commedia" and her work - connecting the use of commedia masks as a way to teach the comedy of Shakespeare - has been presented at the Association of Theater in Higher Education, at MASKS, a National Conference on Masks of the Theatre and at SAPVAME, the South African Performers¹ Voice and Movement Educators Conference in Pretoria, South Africa.